Long, Long Time

Bob Englehart

What were you doing in 1992? I was going to the Democratic convention in New York City and appearing in a political comedy show called “Raucous Caucus” at Caroline’s Comedy Club with, among other undiscovered comedians, Lewis Black. Richard Lapointe was being sentenced to life in prison for a murder that the state has not been able to prove. I don’t usually do cartoons about non-political crimes and misdemeanors, especially murder trials, but this Lapointe case has reached levels of absurdity unknown in recent Connecticut judicial history. I’m not going to rehash the case against prosecuting this man, but let’s be sensible. It has been a miscarriage of justice since the beginning almost 30 years ago. The Connecticut Supreme Court reversed the conviction last March after criticizing the confession obtained by police and other conduct by the prosecutors. Richard Lapointe was born with a hereditary condition that caused his brain to develop abnormally and that has inhibited his coordination, speech and certain mental processes. Lapointe said he confessed to the crime because the cops wanted him to. He’s 69 years old now, walks with a cane and can’t quite understand the complexities of his case. He’s being defended by a national nonprofit group, Centurion Ministries of Princeton, N.J. This from their website: “Our mission is to vindicate and free from prison those individuals in the United States and Canada who are factually innocent of the crimes for which they have been unjustly convicted and imprisoned for life or death.” Prosecutors want more DNA testing done. The whole thing smacks of a bunch of state-employed lawyers trying to save face, or at least, trying to salvage a very badly bungled murder case. Let it go and let Lapointe go.